Friends will be Friends
by Lakritzwolf
Summary: Of how Flak and Shrapnel met, and how they came to put the lives they were living behind them to become respectable dealers in Rivet City. Contains Slash.
1. Chapter 1

Written for the Fallout Kink Meme: _So I seem to have developed a bit of an obsession with Flak and Shrapnel (that might actually be canon). Before settling down in Rivet City we know that Flak was an slaver and that Shrapnel was a raider. Sometimes slavers sells slaves to raiders. Anyway, I really really would like to see a story about them meeting and having hot, manly, sweaty man on man sex as raider and slaver._

And I was all: YAY a prompt for my two favourite guys! The world needs more Flak'n'Shrap. Period._  
_

http:/hel999(.)deviantart(.)com/gallery/33145794#/d4f3cqy

* * *

It was close to midnight and Flak was on his last round before he could hit the sack for the night. This kind of guard duty was largely considered bullshit and a fucking waste of time by everybody except Jones; no one and nothing had ever dared to attack Falls, be it day or night, but Jones insisted, and no one fucked with Jones.

Stopping at the back of one of the buildings, out of the wind for a moment, Flak lit another smoke and leaned against the wall to have a few drags in peace before he continued. It was then that he heard the noise. He spat out the cigarette, pulled his gun and cautiously rounded the corner only to spot one of the raiders, of that small gang who had come in to sell a few girls that day. The fuck a gang of raiders needed that much cash for Flak neither knew nor cared to know. As far as he knew, the gang, seven of them, were staying the night, heavily utilizing the bar and the whores, but there was one of the guys, sitting on the engine bonnet of one of the old cars that littered the perimeter around Paradise Falls. With his dick in his hand.

Flak felt his eyebrows rise to his hairline, and silently withdrew himself back around the corner again to hunt for his smoke. It was still there and still burning, so he popped it back between his lips, but his curiosity, and maybe something else, too, made him peek around the corner again.  
Sure enough, the raider was beating himself off, in a slow, leisurely pace, his head hanging back. Flak leaned against the wall and watched him, feeling a tingling in his lower belly. If that wasn't a sight to beat himself off to, too, in lonely nights to come, then what was?

The raider – Flak hadn't learned their names because he hadn't cared to do so – was not a complete greenhorn like the rest of his gang, but it was hard to tell how old these raiders really were as their style of living usually aged them very fast. Flak had never heard of a raider who had lived past forty. He might have been Flak's age, in his early thirties, but he simply couldn't tell. He certainly didn't have the body of an old and worn out veteran yet.

His shirt was pushed up to his armpits and exposed lean muscles and well-formed pectorals, and his legs, visible in his pants that were hacked off well above the knee, were well-shaped too. Flak took a deep breath and slowly exhaled a cloud. The raider, lost in bliss, hadn't given the slightest sign of being aware of his audience. His hair fell back over his partly shorn head, and Flak had noticed earlier that he was the only one who hadn't dyed and starched his mohawk into that horrible look the raiders seemed to favour so much. Flak was just about to bring his smoke to his lips again when the raider, without lifting his head or opening his eyes, purred in a low and husky voice: "I know you're there. Come out and admit it, at least."

Flak hesitated for a second, then shrugged and, smoke clamped firmly between his lips and SMG loosely in his hands, stepped free of the shadows of the wall. At the sound of his footsteps crunching on the gravel, the raider finally lifted his head.

"Oh." A small, feisty grin spread on his face. "Honestly? I'd expected a chick."  
"Well, sorry to disappoint." Flak puffed his cheeks and blew a small cloud.  
The raider threw his head back and laughed. A pleasant, low chuckle, not a maddened cackle like Flak had expected. You never knew with those raiders, most had irreparably damaged their brain with drugs and rather a lot were actually more than a few bottles short of a six pack.  
"Disappoint?" He chuckled again. "Think I had hoped for you to be a chick?"  
Flak just shrugged. The raider, still sitting there with one leg dangling down the engine bonnet and one leg drawn up, his dick still hard in his right hand while he propped himself up with the other, was giving Flak a lot of indecent thoughts.

"Man, if I was short of a cunt I could just have rented one, right? Like the others did." He righted himself up a little more and tilted his head, a glitter in his eyes that was clearly visible in the murky darkness. "I don't do cunts, rental or otherwise." He spat out beside him and gave Flak a terribly nefarious smirk. "No way. I was just sitting here dreaming of a nice, big, fat and juicy dick when you happened by."  
Flak still didn't reply, but deep down, he suddenly felt the urge to try if tonight, maybe, he wouldn't have to beat himself off in his bunk, alone with only his fantasies to stimulate him. Holstering his gun, he took a step towards the raider who lowered his eyelids and grinned.

"Are you gonna spank me now?"  
"Don't tempt me."

The raider chuckled again and eyed Flak's crotch. His eyes went wide after a second when he realised that the bulge was real. He looked up at Flak's face again and for a long moment, neither of them moved or said a word.

When Flak reached for his belt to undo the buckle the raider shifted his weight but still didn't change his rather exposed position. He watched, rather intently, as Flak slowly undid the zipper and seemed mesmerized when he dug into his pants and brought his dick out, unable to suppress a tiny shiver when the cool night air touched it. He was hard as a rock, fucking hell, it really had been a while.

"Jesus." The raider finally let go of his own dick. "That's some piece of equipment you've got there."  
Flak looked down at himself and with a shrug, up at the raider again. "Take it or leave it."  
"Don't get me wrong." Licking his lips, the raider now dropped both legs and slid down from the car. "With the last guy who fucked me I could've fucking sworn he'd stuck his little finger into my ass instead. This is... this is gonna be better."  
His shirt dropped down again and Flak took another step towards the raider to push it up again. Trailing his fingers along the muscles on the raider's chest, he looked up at his face when he closed his fingers around a stiff and hard nipple. "What's yer name?"  
"They call me Shrapnel." He closed his eyes. "Care to tell me yours?"  
"Flak."  
The raider chuckled again, deeply in his throat. "I see that this was meant to be then, huh?"

Flak didn't reply, instead he leaned forward and gently dug his teeth into the base of the raider's throat. He smelled cleaner than he had expected; a musky, male smell of sweat, coarse cotton, leather and gunpowder, underlain by something sweetish that Flak knew to be jet. But fuck, he didn't care anymore when their naked dicks touched. Both men inhaled sharply.

"Turn around."  
The raider lifted his head and chuckled. "In a hurry? Want me to give him a good soaking before..."  
"Turn around." Flak dug his fingers into the raider's waistband and tore. The pants toppled down.  
Their eyes met, and with a slow grin and hazily lowered eyelids, Shrapnel shrugged. "Better a dry and painful fuck than none, huh?"  
Flak took his shoulders and forced him around. The raider obeyed and dropped forward, leaning onto his hands propped up on the engine bonnet. Then Flak slid his dick between his legs so it rubbed Shrapnel's balls but left it there. "You want it to hurt?"  
"Not... necessarily...", was the reply through gritted teeth.  
"Good." Flak reached around him and ran both his hands under Shrapnel's shirt again. "I interrupted you, buddy, and that's not healthy. A man oughta finish what he started. 'S not healthy at all." With these words his moved his hands down and closed one around the raider's still hard dick. Shrapnel inhaled with a sharp hiss.  
"How d'ya like it? Slow and easy, or hard'n'fast?"  
"What with yer dick rubbing my balls and yer pubes tickling my asshole, I'll settle for hard'n'fast, thank you."  
Flak chuckled and moved his hand back. Shrapnel replied with a deep grunt, and with a steady hand, Flak increased both speed and the pressure of his fingers until the raider's arms began to tremble.  
"Shit, oh shit..."

Flak leaned forward, now breathing hard himself, and after spitting out his butt end dug his teeth into the base of Shrapnel's neck. At that moment he felt the raider's balls clench and his other hand shot out so that the white, hot squirt coming out of Shrapnel's twitching dick landed right in his palm.

Giving the gasping man no respite, Flak quickly moved his drenched hand to his own dick and the crack of the arse it was resting against. With one generous sweep he spread the spunk in his hand where he wanted the lubrication and without further ado, grabbed Shrapnel's ass and went for his own goal. With a deep, hoarse groan the raider dropped his body onto his forearms and spread his legs to give him better access, and with slow, careful movement, because he was aware of the disadvantage of his size and girth, Flak eased himself inside, aided by the rather generous amount of lubrication provided. Then he closed his eyes and began to move, his fingers digging into the firm and round buttocks before him.

It really had been too long, and a part of him almost regretted when he realised he was reaching the point of no return far too quickly. But then, the heavy moans of the man under him, his every move meeting Flak's own thrust in a perfect rhythm, were pulling him under like lead weights. With one last grunt, he let go and spent himself with a few last, deep thrusts.

Both men stood still, their gasping, heavy breaths the only sounds in the silence around them, before Flak slowly withdrew himself again, as cautiously as he had entered. When he looked down, he found the raider slumped over the car, his head falling onto his arms.

"You all right, buddy?"  
The reply was muffled, his face buried in his forearms. "Never been better."

Flak chuckled and used a corner of his shirt to wipe himself off before he pulled his pants up and buckled his belt. With a deeply satisfied sigh, he then settled down on the ground, his back against the door of the car, and watched as Shrapnel slowly straightened up and brought himself into some sort of order again. With a small grin, he went down beside him, but Flak caught him before he reached the ground and pulled him onto his lap. Shrapnel didn't resist, but he gave him a funny look under raised brows.

"What?"  
"Didn't think you were a cuddler."  
"I ain't."  
"Oh." A shrug. "Well."  
"Won't hold you down if you wanna get off me."  
"I'm cool." A pause. "Say..."  
"Hm?"  
"You got any more smokes, buddy?"

Flak draped one arm around Shrapnel's shoulders while he dug into his pocket with the other to produce a pack. Shrapnel took one, popped it between his lips and Flak took one as well, then took his lighter.  
The cigarettes lit, he closed his eyes, leaned his head back again and felt the man on his lap relax a little and finally, settle his head against his shoulder. They remained like that for a while, smoking in companionable silence.

"Flak?"  
"What."  
Shrapnel stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles. "Think this'll happen again?"  
Flak thought this through for a while. "Wouldn't mind. If you came to Falls again, that is."  
"That's the thing." Shrapnel tapped off the ash of his smoke. "Don't think it likely."  
"Hm." With his eyes closed, Flak trailed his hand up the raider's back and ran it through the stripe of hair on his crown. It was quite long and due to it not being starched, it hung down one side of his head like a horse's mane. "Shrap?"  
"What?"  
"Why don't you have such a spiky style like the rest of yer gang?"  
Shrapnel chuckled. "You know... I tried it, but I just can't be arsed with it anymore."  
"Looks better that way anyway."  
"What?" Another deep chuckle. "First you cuddle me, and then you give me compliments? What's next? Flowers?"  
Flak settled his head back comfortably and took a drag of his smoke. "Don't make me break yer nose."

Shrapnel chuckled again but didn't reply, and they stayed like that, smoking in silence, until their cigarettes were finished. In the east, the first grey line of dawn began to show on the horizon.

"We leave at sunrise", Shrapnel said as he smoothed down his shirt. "If the other assholes get their asses out of the cots, that is."  
"I know."  
The raider looked up into Flak's unmoving face and shrugged. "Quite enjoyed tonight."  
A twitch tugged at the corner of Flak's lips. "Yeah. Quite so."  
"I think I'm gonna miss that dick of yours."  
"Now who's getting soppy?" Flak lit another smoke.  
"Fuck you", Shrapnel said, but his heart wasn't really in it.  
"I'd rather fuck you", Flak said, his eyes glittering.  
Shrapnel broke out into a laugh. "I'm looking forward to the next time, buddy. Whenever that may be, though."

They exchanged a long, silent glance before Flak held out his hand. Shrapnel took it, and they closed their hands around each other thumbs before letting go. Then Flak slapped the raider between the shoulder blades and turned around without looking back. "Be seeing you. Maybe."  
"Hopefully", Shrapnel said to Flak's retreating back. Then the gate closed behind him, and the raider sat down on the engine bonnet again and stared into the paling sky above him.


	2. Chapter 2

After all that time, Flak hadn't believed that he would ever see him again, and in all those months that had turned into almost two years, he hadn't allowed himself a single moment of hope that maybe it would happen. And now that it had, Flak wished he had never seen him again, after all.

The gang of raiders, six in all, stumbled through the gates, and not one of them was unscathed by a fight that had to have taken place less than an hour ago. Two of the raiders were carried by two others of their comrades each, but it was clear to Flak at first glance that one of the two men was dead already. And the other…  
The other had a mohawk like the rest of them, but it was neither starched nor dyed. And he was bleeding from a wound in his left leg like a butchered molerat.

"Your doc around?", asked a woman, one that Flak dimly could remember as having been a member of the gang the first time they had come here. She was ordering the others around, where to put the two heavily wounded and to get out of each other's way. It looked like she had, at least temporarily, taken over command of the gang.  
"The fuck happened to you guys?", Forty asked as he came over to eye the carnage.  
"Regulators", the girl replied. Her hairdo was a bright, sickly pink, but like the rest of her appearance, presently rather ragged. "The fuck is that to you anyway? Your doc around or not?"  
"He's coming already", Forty replied sourly and took a step back to light up a smoke.

Flak had watched the raiders' arrival with mixed feelings. Sure thing, that one without colour in his hair was him, but he looked like he would kick the bucket any moment now. The doc, in turn cast a single glance at the other man and shrugged before settling down beside Shrapnel's bloodied form. He jabbed a few stimpacks into him and leaned back to wait for their effect.

Jones himself chose that moment to enter the scene, and when he noticed what was going on, he sauntered over and surveyed the raiders. "What's going on here? What happened to you?"  
"Regulators", the girl said again. "A dozen of them. Fuck them."  
"Did you kill them?"  
"What? We were only eight, for fuck's sake and they took us by surprise!"  
"The fuck they did, Chippy." Shrapnel, at least partly restored by the stimpacks, propped himself up on his elbows. "I told you bloody green bitch that those guys didn't look like caravaneers but you wouldn't listen!"  
"Shut the fuck up!", the little bitch shrieked and crossed her arms. "If you hadn't moaned and muttered about them being superior like a frightened old man we'd have gotten them in time!"  
"Fuck we had", Shrapnel spat back at her. "The only thing we'd have gotten at would've been our own deaths."  
"Fuck you."  
"Hold it", Jones fell in. "You lost a fight against the fucking regulators and had nothing better to do than draw them right here?"

Chippy heard, even in her rage, the dangerous strain in Jones' voice and turned to face him. "Why… I mean, they sure as fuck know where Fall is anyway?"  
"They sure as fuck do, you stupid bitch, but usually, we have a day's warning about them from our lookouts! And if we lose one man now should those fuckers attack, I'll take it out of your own hide."

All the raiders fell silent and stared at Jones, fully aware now that they were severely outnumbered and hadn't just made themselves very popular among their hosts.

"Now look, Jones", Chippy said in a low voice. "I'm sure as can be they didn't follow us and if they did, we're gonna help you fight them off."  
"Jet-crazed little whore." Jones shook his head, then he yelled at the man who was standing on the little watchtower: "Anything in sight?"  
"No", the man yelled back down. "Not a soul moving out there."  
"Seems it's your lucky day", Jones said to Chippy again and crossed his arms. "So if you're quite finished with messing up my city, pay for that medical treatment and get the fuck out."  
The pink-haired bitch stared at Jones for a moment with her mouth open, then she snapped it shut. "Pay… uhm. Yeah. How much…"  
"We haven't got a cap between the lot of us, Chippy", Shrapnel fell in, his voice dripping with acid. "What did you expect? These guys are slavers, not a charity."  
"Fuck you!"  
"Payment?" Jones fell in again and eyed Chippy with unmasked displeasure. She, in turn, straightened up and thrust out her breasts. "Well, I could offer payment in kind", she purred.  
Jones took a step forward and tore her shirt apart. After eyeing her tits for a moment he copped as much of a feel as he could, then nodded. "It's a start. On your knees then and show me your arse, chick, so I can fuck you like the bitch you are."  
Chippy was about to throw another insult at him, but thought better of it. Ignoring Shrapnel's feisty snicker, she did as she was told and let Jones fuck her in front of her gang and all slavers who happened to be present. She even seemed to enjoy it. Flak was more disgusted than ever.

"It's a start", Jones said again as he was standing up and buttoning up his pants. "What else?"  
Still breathing hard and with her cheeks flushed, the pink-haired bitch stood up as well, pulled up her pants and jerked her chin at Shrapnel. "You can keep him."  
"WHAT?" Shrapnel jumped to his feet and instantly winced as the movement tore at his just about healed wound in his leg. "I'll skin you alive you fucking…"  
"Deal", Jones said coldly. "And now get the fuck out of here before I change my mind and have the fucking lot of you collared."  
"The fuck you will…" Shrapnel began, but Forty, always ready to inflict a little pain, elbowed him squarely in the kidneys. The raider doubled over with a strained wheeze that made Flak flinch. He was just about to open his mouth to say something to Jones, even if he had no clear idea what, when another one, Jenkins, came over and snapped a collar around Shrapnel's neck.

The raider jerked upright again with a roar of fury, but now it was too late. Jenkins hit a button on the controller he had in his hands, and with a yelp, Shrapnel fell onto his knees, gasping heavily as the pain from the jolt the collar had given him subsided. "I'll get your fucking hide for this, you bitch, I swear…"

None of the other raiders made a move or said a word to aid their former comrade. They followed the snickering bitch out through the gates in silence, passing Shrapnel with shrugs or apologetic grins. There was no loyalty among these people, and no kind of honour. Not that slavers had much loyalty or honour, but Flak felt sickened at their indifference to their former comrade's fate. Maybe they were just afraid they'd join him if they said anything, and with good reason.

And he himself… he simply didn't dare open his mouth any more. Nothing he said would change Jones' mind, and the only thing he would do was drag Shrapnel further into the shit he already was in. If he wanted to help him, he needed a plan, and remain inconspicuous to do so. It felt like a knife in his belly to watch Forty and Jenkins delighting in beating seven kinds of shit out of the former raider, but he couldn't do a fucking thing.

They stopped when Shrapnel started spitting blood, and through a haze of excruciating pain Shrapnel dimly realised that they began cutting his clothes off his body, then forced him up onto his knees. The doc, used to that kind of procedure, had hovered nearby and now crouched down beside him and unceremoniously jabbed a few stimpacks into him. As soon as he was able to keep himself upright when the two slavers let go of his shoulders, Forty dragged his arms behind his back, holding him down while Jenkins equipped himself with a piece of equipment that he first recognised as a clipper when it touched his scalp.

It wasn't so much that he minded losing his hair, it was the fucking indignity of being undressed and shorn, treated like a piece of worthless shit, that made him fight back. Only until Jenkins pressed that fucking button again, though. The jolt that tore through his body made him retch.  
"You keep doing that, and I'll keep on turning up the power of that thing until I fry your brain, understand?"  
Shrapnel couldn't reply, but managed a nod. He thought for a second or two about fighting on to make them kill him, but he somehow knew they wouldn't.  
"Good boy. Give us any more trouble, and I'll tell Forty to get his shears."  
In his near-delirium of pain and blood-loss, Shrapnel didn't make much sense of Jones' last words, but he realised even had he wanted it, he had nothing with which to fight back anyway.

They forced him onto his feet and dragged him across the plaza towards the slave pens, throwing him through the gate and slamming and locking the door behind him. Shrapnel remained where he had fallen, flat on his belly, burning with pain and humiliation. When he tried to lift his head, however, he felt his vision swim and blacken. His head hit the ground again.

With a deep burning fury churning in his belly Flak had helplessly watched the whole ugly scene, and it cost him all he had to keep his face under control and remain inconspicuous.

"That's it, then", Jones said. "We've got the ten men we need, so we can get them underway tomorrow. Tenpenny will be pleased."  
Forty rubbed the back of his neck. "Sure we can sell that snobbish fucker a raider?"  
"Raider?" Jones feigned surprised innocence. "What raider? We only have slaves in our pens."  
"Yeah… but…"  
"But what?"  
"He ain't broken yet, I tell you."  
"Then fucking make sure he is before you reach Tenpenny Tower."  
"Yes, boss." Forty rubbed his hands, and Flak wanted to kill him.

The slavers went on with their business as usual, night was falling and the fires were lit, and a little later, most of Paradise Falls had gathered in the bar. Flak was there, too, but he was sitting in a corner, smoking silently and thinking furiously. His only chance was to create some kind of distraction on the tour tomorrow. For that, he had to make sure he would be among the men making that tour in the first place. Not getting hammered tonight and being one of the first to be up tomorrow was his best bet, and easily enough achieved as he didn't feel like drinking anyway.

His eyes kept darting towards the male slave pen and the pale, silent figure that was still lying where it had fallen.


	3. Chapter 3

How much time had passed Shrapnel couldn't say, but when he awoke, the pain in his body reduced to a numb throbbing thanks to the stimpacks, he managed to force himself up into a halfway crouching position to realise it was dark around him. He could hear the slavers from a distance, laughing, drinking, sitting at their fucking fires while he was lying in the bitingly cold air without a thread to cover himself. He couldn't remember ever having been that cold.

He heard a few shuffles and a cough nearby and when he slowly turned his head, he saw a few other men, huddled together in the far corner of the pen. More slaves, but they at least were clothed. He didn't expect anything from them, but after a few moments, one of the slaves stood up slowly and cautiously walked over to him. He dropped what in the darkness seemed to be a blanket.  
"Here." His voice was low and hoarse. "We thought we had nothing, but you've got even less."  
Shrapnel picked up the blanket, it wasn't big, and it was so threadbare it was hardly more than a rag, but it was better than nothing and could at least provide him with a little shred of dignity again, so he slung it around his hips. "Thanks." He licked his cracked lips. "Do you have any water?"  
"No." In the darkness, the shake of his head was hardly perceptible. "They feed and water us once a day, and that's in the morning. Sorry."  
"Thanks anyway", Shrapnel muttered. The other slave then withdrew himself again into the safety and comparative warmth of his companions. It was clear to him that he wasn't welcome there, but at least he wasn't completely naked anymore. He more crawled than walked over to the nearest wall and rolled himself as tightly together as he could, but it did little to ease his discomfort. On top of it all, his skin began to itch and his fingers started to tremble. He needed another hit of jet before he would go cold, but that was as likely as a rain of sausages right now. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the itch when he heard footsteps slowly coming up to the fence.

"Hey."  
It was a low whisper, aimed to remain unheard by anyone but him, obviously. Shrapnel ignored that, too.  
"Shrap."  
Who of those fucking slavers knew his name? He slowly sat up and made out a silhouette in the darkness, illuminated from behind by the slaver's fires. Tall, broad shouldered, very short hair, and the tell-tale pinpoint glow of a cigarette in his mouth.  
"Fuck off."  
"Listen."  
"Fuck off. Wasn't the show enough? Just fuck off."  
"Listen. Do you think I enjoyed that?"  
Shrapnel sat up at this, and the burning fury in his gut lit up again. "You sure as fuck didn't see any need to stop them."

"And what could I have done?" The voice was still low, but Shrapnel could hear the trembling of anger. "Nothing I could've said would have changed Jones' mind. If I had so much as moved a finger for you, Jones would've had me turned into mince or put a collar on me too, and a fucking load of good that would've done you."  
Even in his fury, Shrapnel had to admit he was probably right. He had only been a single man, after all, against a load of the others. "Yeah..." The fury dimmed into anger again. "And now?"  
"Keep your head down." Flak bent down and seemed to have found something in his boot, but it might have been he just needed an excuse to still linger at the fence. "They will try and break you, and believe me, they can. Jenkins and Forty have reduced stronger men than you to a miserable heap. Don't let them."  
"And how..." The itch as getting worse, as was the thirst. "You got any water, man?"  
"No." Flak pulled at his boot. "Don't meet their eyes. Pretend you're broken already. Swallow what they say to you. Do what they say. They only wait for you to show a trace of defiance, and then they'll hurt you."  
"Can't be worse than how they hurt me already."

Flak spat out his butt end. "Trust me, they haven't hurt you yet at all. They caused you pain, but they haven't hurt you yet."  
These words, spoken in a voice that was so low and dark it almost sounded like a growl, made the hairs on his arms stand on edge. "But..."  
"You still got all your teeth, buddy?"  
Shrapnel ran his tongue involuntarily along his teeth. "Yeah."  
"Then do what they say if you wanna keep it that way. They can do a lot of harm to your body without rendering you useless for work. There's a lot of smaller body parts you don't need to do slave's work."  
These last words caused Shrapnel's belly clench in fear for a second. "I got you, buddy." He swallowed hard. "I totally got you."  
"Good. Remember. Keep your head down and swallow everything. I got a plan. But to keep it secret, I've got to play that game, too. Whatever happens, I can't help you. Once we're on the way, I'll get you out, but not before. Understand?"  
"Yeah." A shudder crept down Shrapnel's spine, as much cold as foreboding, and the itch got a little worse. He watched Flak walk away again and settled back down on the hard, gravelly ground to wait for dawn.

_**x-x-x-x-x-x**_

When dawn came and the slavers unlocked the pen, Shrapnel had to use all the strength he had left to force himself up onto his feet again. He was stiff and sore from the beating and the night spent freezing rolled up into a ball on the ground, but despite the withdrawals getting worse he remembered Flak's words clearly.

_There's a lot of smaller body parts you don't need to do slave's work. _

And because he intended to keep them all, he stumbled after the other slaves, trying to stop his teeth from clattering.

"You! Raider!"  
He stopped. Forty walked up to him and dropped something at his feet. "Put that on."  
Nothing he'd rather have done. A pair of coarse, grey and worn cotton pants and a likewise coarse and worn shirt, but at least they were clothes. No shoes, but he hadn't expected any luxuries.

"Now listen." Forty hooked his thumbs into his belt. "And look at me when I talk to you."  
Shrapnel forced himself to look at him. And because he wanted to get through this as fast as possible, he made no attempt at hiding the trace of fear he felt when looking at his tormentor. Forty seemed at least partly satisfied. "We're selling you to Tenpenny. He's a snobbish bastard, and if he's dissatisfied with the goods, we get to hear it. And believe me, we don't want to hear any such things."  
Shrapnel simply nodded.  
"He's your master. Once we deliver you, he owns you body and soul. You'll call him master, and anyone else living in that snobbish bog of his. Or mistress, of course. You'll do as they say. Otherwise..." A small, evil grin spread on his face and he reached for the device hanging at his belt. Shrapnel couldn't help but flinch, but Forty never pressed the button. Upon seeing Shrapnel's reaction, he emitted a coarse, grating laugh. "You're a fast learner at least, despite being a fucked up raider. But there's one lesson you gotta learn yet." He straightened up and eyed Shrapnel, the grin growing a little broader. "And that is obeying orders. Kneel and suck me off."  
Revulsion hit Shrapnel like a wave. "What?"  
"Wrong answer."

The jolt came fast and hard, making Shrapnel topple to his knees with a yelp of pain. Before he could even draw another breath, Forty pressed another button and the pain worsened, not so much in intensity but in quality. It paralysed him. He could hardly breathe anymore.

"The answer is always: Yes, master. Understand?"  
Shrapnel managed a nod, but only just.  
"Good. But to be on the safe side... Jenkins! The shears!"

The world spun, and Shrapnel had no strength to resist being thrown flat onto his belly again. The collar still held him almost paralysed, and while Forty now brutally sat down on his ribcage the other man behind him tore his pants down to his ankles. Cold sweat broke out all over his body when he felt something cold and metallic touch the tender skin of his nutsack. But he couldn't even beg for mercy, he had no breath to spare. He tried to fight, but he was still paralysed, and one man was sitting on his torso while the other sat on his legs.

"Feel that?", Forty asked in a low voice. "That's what we do to slaves to take the fight out of them."

Shrapnel felt as if he was about to throw up. Or faint. He wanted to faint. His whole body was awash with pain and his belly filled with ice-cold horror. A whimper escaped his mangled throat that even to his own ears didn't sound like something a human should be able to make when the shears suddenly snapped shut with a deadly, horrible, metallic click. The scream stuck in his throat and escaped as a suffocated whine, a hot liquid spread under his lower belly, but first after a few seconds did Shrapnel realise that he couldn't feel any pain. The slavers sitting on him began to laugh, and only then did he realise that the shears had snapped shut in the empty air, that they hadn't done anything to him and he had succeeded to piss himself in his terror.

The two slavers, still chuckling in evil glee, now got off him and told him to get up. Forty switched the collar off for now and Shrapnel, his limbs weak and trembling, somehow managed to get up onto his feet and dress himself again. After a few moments, when he was slowly getting his breath back, he dimly wondered what Flak might have thought of him making such an ass of himself, but he didn't want to look at his face right now.

"Remember how that felt", Forty said to him. "Because that'll be the first thing Tenpenny'll do to you when you fail to obey. Then he'll return the goods to us because they were faulty, and we deal with what is left of you by then. Understood?"  
"Yes." His throat hurt worse than ever, and he still hadn't had a single drop of water.  
"What was that?"  
"Yes, master."  
"Good. And now get in line."

Without looking up Shrapnel walked over to where the other slaves were standing with unmoving faces and silently watching the proceedings. He wondered for a second if any of them had been subjected to the same treatment, if, in fact, some of them really had been castrated for their attempts at resistance, but he knew he'd never have the balls to ask even had they been allowed to talk. They left Falls a little later, after the slaves had been fed a bowl of thin and bitter gruel each, and headed south, for Tenpenny Tower.


	4. Chapter 4

_Keep your head down. _

It was all Shrapnel kept telling himself during that long, painful march. Keep your head down. His feet hurt, he had never walked so much and on so rough terrain while being barefoot, his whole body seemed to be one big bruise, most likely a result of the paralysing effect of the collar, and he was still going mad with thirst and the itching and shivering from withdrawal symptoms that got worse with each passing hour.

They made a break around noontime, but while the slavers ate, they didn't bother to feed or even water their slaves. They continued southward after an hour or so, always south, always towards their final destination that would be the last thing they would ever see.

They halted when night fell, and while the slavers ate, the slaves huddled miserably around a tiny, pathetic fire they had been allowed and waited for their turn. Eventually they were fed too, but even though Shrapnel was trembling with exhaustion, the itch and the dizziness of the withdrawal were now so bad he couldn't have slept had his live depended on it.

One slaver always watched the slaves, but they were taking turns. Shrapnel wished he had something by which to measure time, to keep track of the hours, though what that would have achieved he couldn't even say. At one point, though, he realised that the guards had changed again and even in the darkness, he recognized the slaver that was now clipping the controlling device to his belt before lighting up another smoke. Anticipation began to rise in him, but he wondered how he could make his escape even if Flak managed to somehow rid him of the collar. He harboured no illusions he would get far in his current state, weakened by hunger, thirst, torture and withdrawal.

Flak slowly walked around the sleeping slaves, and when he passed him, he dropped a small bag into Shrapnel's lap. He closed his fingers around it and could make out the shape of a small pistol, most likely a ten mil, and items that could have been packs of ammo or provisions, canned food and water. It was at that moment that Shrapnel realised that Flak was risking his own skin with what he was trying to do, and that realisation seriously weakened his resolve to attempt an escape at all. But then, his collar, and all the others' collars as well, began to beep hysterically.

All hell broke loose. The slaves, awoken by their beeping collars, thought that the malfunction was about to kill them and panicked, the slavers, awoken by the slaves' panic, groped for their weapons and tried to get their senses back together, and into the chaos, Flak yelled at the top of his lungs: "Malfunction!"

Then the beeping stopped, and the collars fell silent. Their lights went out, too.

"Get them!"

One of the slaves was the first to react, he jumped to his feet and ran into the night as fast as he could. And behind him, Shrapnel could hear Flak hiss: "Run. You gotta be out of reach before they activate them again. Run!"  
Shrapnel staggered to his feet and turned around. He could see the anxiety in Flak's face. "Get moving, you ass!"  
"And you?"  
"I'll do. I'll talk my way out of this. Now get moving, you stupid shit, before it all was in vain!"  
"Are you kidding me? Jones will nail your balls to his wall without bothering to cut them off first!"  
"Run!"  
"Not without you, buddy."  
Flak muttered a few very choice curses under his breath before unholstering his gun. "Run, you idiot. I'll be right behind you."

And Shrapnel gathered all his strength, or what was left of it, and ran. Behind him, he could hear the steps of the slaver, as if he meant to catch him. Several times his bare feet hit rocks or and smaller stones dug in painfully, but he gritted his teeth and stumbled onwards, on trembling legs that threatened to give way under him any second.

Then the collar suddenly came to life again.

_Beeeeep._

"Shit..." He was done for. He stumbled to a halt, and the collar beeped again. And again.  
And then Flak caught up with him and heard the sound, too. "Fuck!"  
Without further ado he threw Shrapnel to the ground and leaned over him, drawing a small knife in the process. The beeping continued.

_Beeeep... Beeeep...Beeeep... _

"Fucking hell..." Flak fumbled with the knife at the collar, but it was dark, he was out of breath, and the speed of the beeping increased.

_Beep...beep...beep...beep...beep... _

"Fuck, get off me, buddy!" Shrapnel tried to push him off, he knew he was done for, but there was no reason he should take the man with him who had tried to save his arse. "Get the fuck off me, that thing'll kill us both!"  
"Fuck off!"

_Beep beep beep beep _

Silence.

Both men emitted a gasp that was close to a sob and Flak dropped the knife with a shudder. "Fuck."  
Shrapnel hadn't got his speech back yet, he was just getting to grips with the fact that his head was still attached to his body.  
"Come on, buddy." Flak took his arm to help him up, and Shrapnel let him drag him to his feet. He stumbled and his knees gave way.  
Flak grabbed his elbow to steady him. "Did you take the bag?"  
Shrapnel managed a nod. "It's around here somewhere."  
Flak trailed his foot out and around until he found it, then picked it up. "Need food? Water?"  
"Water."

Flak offered him a bottle, but as Shrapnel let go of his arm to take it, his knees buckled away and he would have fallen hadn't Flak grabbed his elbow again. "Shit." He helped him carefully to sit down. "What's the matter?"  
"What's the matter?" Shrapnel dropped the bottle he was about to bring to his lips. "What's the matter?" A high pitched giggle forced its way out of his mouth. "I've been enslaved, electrocuted, beaten within an inch of my sorry life, I've been almost castrated, almost beheaded and I'm going ice-cold from jet withdrawal, and you ask me what's the matter?" He had no means with which to stop the cackling laugh that bubbled out of his throat. "Jesus Ch...christ on a... on a p...piece of toast..."  
"Stop laughing." Flak's voice sounded more than worried.  
Shrapnel couldn't stop.  
"Stop it!"  
He just couldn't.  
Flak grew desperate and slapped him. Somehow, it brought Shrapnel back to his senses. He gasped for air a few times and dropped his face in his hands. "Sorry, buddy, I... I can't... I don't think I can..."  
"It's all right." Flak slowly got up again, gathered up the bag and helped Shrapnel to his feet again. "We need to get further away, though. They could still find us. Can you walk?"  
"I'll try."

Flak kept on holding on to his elbow, and they made their way through the pitch-black darkness of the wasteland night, Shrapnel stumbling along and leaning more and more heavily on Flak's arm until his legs finally gave way under him completely. Flak caught him, and with a low sigh, draped one of Shrapnel's arms across his shoulder, then brought one of his around Shrapnel's hips. With a heave and a grunt, he hoisted the other man onto his shoulders and, after staggering under the load for a moment, adjusted his bearings and continued his way until he reached a chain of hills.

He found a hollow between a few rocks, and only then realised that he could find it at all because dawn was already well underway. He crept inside, it was a bit much to call it a cave, but it was a shelter of sorts, would keep out the rain or dust and provide them with cover. After putting Shrapnel's unconscious body down he settled down with his back against the rocks and picked him up again, settled him on his lap and rested his upper body against his own, with his head resting against his shoulder.

Shrapnel was trembling, ice-cold and muttering unintelligible things under his breath. Flak, in turn, held on to him, knowing beyond doubt that the only way for them to go on now was toughing it out until Shrapnel was over the jet withdrawal. From all he had ever heard about the shit, he wasn't too sure if that was even possible, but there was nothing else for them.  
Shrapnel suddenly flinched and whimpered in a nightmare Flak could not wake him up from.

"I got you, buddy", he said in a low voice and ran a hand down Shrapnel's back. "I got you."

_**x-x-x-x-x-x**_

Flak remained like that for the rest of the day, and another night, occasionally dozing off, and only leaving the cave when nature called, and in all that time, Shrapnel's state hadn't changed. He began to wonder if there was any chance at all to survive jet withdrawal at all without medical help, because he couldn't get either food or water into him. The next morning, however, brought relief. Shrapnel opened his eyes and asked for water.

Flak was at his side in an instant, after just having had a piss, and offered him a bottle. It had rained a little last night, and he had put the empty bottles outside; thankfully, the rain had lasted long enough to partly fill them again. Shrapnel drank greedily and muttered a hoarse thanks before his head fell back again.

He passed out again shortly afterwards, but it seemed to Flak as if the violent bouts of trembling had stopped. He didn't dare to allow himself too much hope, however, it might be that the worst was yet to come. He simply didn't know.

But at noon, Shrapnel woke up again, and for the first time in three days, his eyes seemed clear.  
"How are you?" Flak leaned forward to peek into his face.  
Shrapnel blinked into the sunlight that fell into the cave. "My head hurts like shit."  
"And otherwise?"  
Shrapnel thought this through for a moment. "I've stopped freezing." Then he looked at Flak again. "And shivering."  
"You think you're getting over it?"  
"Maybe", Shrapnel replied cautiously. "I've never tried to go cold before."  
"You feel like you could eat?"  
"Not really." Shrapnel tried to sit up, but his head was swimming. "But I think I'll have to."  
Flak dug into the bag. "Nothing left but a can of cram."  
"I'll give it a try."

He ate cautiously, and when he felt his stomach begin to complain after a few mouthfuls he stopped, waiting for the urge to vomit, but it didn't come. When his stomach had calmed down again after a little while he tried a little more, and when his stomach failed to complain, even more. He began to feel a little better. "I think it's all right."  
"Good." Flak sat down beside him and checked his gun. "I didn't want to leave you alone in here, otherwise I would've gone after one of the molerats I spotted nosing around here."  
Shrapnel nodded weakly and peeked at the sunlight outside again. "How long have I been out?"  
"A day and a night."  
"No wonder I need to piss. Give me a hand up?"

Flak wordlessly got up and extended a hand to him, but Shrapnel was still so weak that he had to lean heavily onto Flak to make his way out.  
Once he was done, he tried to stand on his own, which worked, for a given value of. He wasn't able to walk yet, though. "I feel like shit, buddy."  
"You look like shit, too."  
"And what now?" Shrapnel turned to look at Flak, and the latter shrugged. "I somehow need to get that collar off you, but I haven't got the tools any more. Those are in Falls, and I don't precisely care to go back there right now."  
Shrapnel chuckled mirthlessly under his breath. "Quite so. So what?"  
Flak shrugged again. "Find help somewhere. We don't have to tell people we're a raider and a slaver, might not increase disposition towards us. Mercenaries, though..." He shrugged again and produced a pack of smokes. He offered Shrapnel one who took it with, as he realised, still somewhat shaky fingers. After offering him fire and lighting up his own smoke, Flak continued as he slipped the lighter back into his pocket. "Mercenaries might run into slavers and lose. I managed to get you out, and now... well, now we're stuck."

"Wasteland mercs, huh?" Shrapnel looked down at himself, and at his grimy, worn and threadbare clothes. "Don't look like much, though, do I?"  
"Man, with that fucking collar around yer neck it doesn't matter a fucking thing what you wear, buddy."  
"Yeah." He absentmindedly rubbed the band of metal around his neck and sighed. "I'll get her hide for this, I swear."  
"And I'll hold her down for you. But first, you have to get up to speed again. Then we need equipment. You need a gun. I've got a ten mil to spare, but that won't get us far, either, though it's better than nothing. And we gotta get rid of that collar."  
"And where..."  
"Fuck if I know." Flak exhaled a long, bluish cloud. "Megaton, perhaps. If they believe us about being mercs having run out of luck, they might help, though fuck if I know how to pay for any service. It's our best bet, I guess."  
"Megaton, huh?" Shrapnel wiped a hand across his nose. "Never been there."  
"Me neither. I only know that their Sherriff is a retired regulator."  
"Fuck. That's a risk."  
"Maybe. You don't precisely look like a raider anymore. I can't imagine he can smell I'm..." Flak faltered for a second. "I was a slaver. We just need to watch our mouths."

Shrapnel nodded and took a deep breath, then exhaled a long cloud. The nicotine calmed his jittering nerves somewhat and numbed the pangs of hunger that had begun to churn in his belly despite the meagre meal. He took the hunger as a good sign, however, that his body was on the way to recovery.

"I guess there's nothing but to get going."  
"You can walk?"  
"Slowly", Shrapnel answered. "And probably not very far. But if we wait here until that gets better we'll probably starve."  
Flak gave his back a friendly, albeit cautious slap to avoid pushing him out of balance. "Then let's get going."  
Shrapnel gave him a lopsided grin, and they set off, at a slow pace, heading south and east.


	5. Chapter 5

The sun was about to set when the two weary travellers suddenly heard a dog bark. Flak immediately snapped to attention and pulled and cocked his gun, but they couldn't see anything. The barking continued, but it didn't come closer. It didn't move further away, either. When they looked around, Flak finally spotted a small column of smoke coming from behind a rise.

"A farm?", Shrapnel asked, leaning heavily against on his arm again. Walking was hell with his weak and trembling limbs and without shoes.  
"Probably. Should we try..."  
"What? They're most likely more than we, and better armed. And in better health."  
"Fuckwit." Flak shook his head. "We could just ask them."  
Shrapnel snapped his mouth shut and shook his head. "Don't know how you can put up with an idiot like me."  
"Don't know either. Shut your mouth and let me do the talking."

They approached the farm cautiously, walking slowly and with half outstretched arms, their guns firmly holstered. The dog, chained to a fence, barked furiously, but no other sign of life was seen or heard.  
Until they passed the first fence, when they suddenly saw the barrel of a shotgun sticking out of a window.

"Who are you?"  
It was a female voice, and for a moment, Flak was too puzzled to speak. Then he cleared his throat. "Just two weary travellers who ran out of luck. We'd just need some water, and maybe food..."  
"Drop your guns where I can see them. Then you can come to the door."

With careful moves, the two men dropped their guns and stepped away from them. Then they cautiously approached the door, and when they knocked, the shotgun vanished. They heard the sound of a bolt being moved as behind them, the dog went batshit.

"Shut up, you fucking mongrel!"  
The dog shut up, but seemed to do so only reluctantly.  
"Come in."

The farmhouse, as shabby as it had looked from the outside, was actually comfortably furnished and, while obviously poor, it was well kept and clean. When the door closed and they turned around they saw the woman, her face lined from hard work and a harsh life more than age. She was still holding the gun, but first when she moved, walking in a strange waddle, did the two men realize she was very heavily pregnant.

They let the woman have a good look at them, and when she seemed satisfied they were no threat, she jerked her head towards the table. "Sit down."  
They sat, and the woman leaned the gun against the wall, but never moved far away from it as she put two bottles of water and two bowls of steaming stew onto the table.  
Then she leaned against the wall and watched the two men eat.

"You sure look as if you hadn't had anything to bite in a while."  
Flak looked up from the empty bowl. "Yeah, quite so."  
"What happened to him?"  
Flak and Shrapnel exchanged a glance, then the former shrugged. "We're mercs. Ran into a group of slavers, and most of us got killed. They got my buddy here, and I... well, I lay low because I hoped I could get him out of there."  
"Seems like you did."  
"Yeah, but now I don't know how to go on. We've lost the lot, and my buddy doesn't even have a gun, plus he still has that fucking collar as a keepsake of that adventure."  
"It should have blown his head off long since." Her voice carried distrust.  
"I managed to disarm it." Flak forced himself to stop fiddling with the spoon. "Sheer luck. It almost blew us both up, but I didn't want to let my buddy go without a fight."

She met his eyes, and finally nodded. "Brave thing to do, really. Now listen. I can't help you, but my man or my brother might. They're out tending to the cattle and will be back soon, as it's almost nightfall. You don't look as if you could pay for any equipment we could spare, and he..." She pointed with her chin at Shrapnel "... looks as if a mutant ate him and shat him out again." She looked at Flak again. "There's a stack of wood behind the house that needs chopping. Will you?"  
"Sure."  
"I'll collect your guns. And if you try anything funny, Jake and Albert'll have your hides for a wall decoration."  
"Wouldn't dream of it, ma'm", Shrapnel said demurely. Having a slave collar clamped around one's neck could make any man lose his will to be snarky, even if the fucker was deactivated.

When the woman came back with their guns, Shrapnel could already hear the rhythmic chopping and clattering of Flak chopping the wood coming in through the back window. The woman sat down beside him, slowly and awkwardly due to her huge belly, and eyed him again.  
"I heard of the things slavers do to the ones they capture. I'm no wasteland doctor, but I do know a little bit of first aid and such. Do you need anything?"  
"Not anymore." That was nothing but the truth. "I guess... oh forget it."  
Her eyes softened for a moment and she put a hand on his arm. "I guess your pride hurts worse than anything else. I know your type of man."  
Shrapnel shrugged. That wasn't far off the mark, either.  
"In any case, once my men are back, they might get that ghastly thing off your neck."  
"I... I'm not sure we can pay you for all that help you're offering."  
"Bah." She waved that aside. "We may not have a lot, but out here in the wasteland, we help each other."

Shrapnel suddenly couldn't meet her eyes anymore. He had just realised that, for the first time in his sorry existence, someone was helping him. Freely. Just because it was what you did. And with that realisation came another: Had he still been with his gang, he would have robbed this farm bare, killed every living thing here and taken whatever was of value, without any remorse. Would have killed the woman without a second thought. Ever since he had run away from home at ten and succeeded in joining the raiders, he had only taken whatever he had managed to get his hands on, and at that moment he realised what a sorry pit of vomit his life had turned out to be. Drugs, violence, hate, sex, death. It had absolutely no meaning. No meaning at all. His hands began to shake again.

He felt like shit, physically and mentally. He iwas/i a piece of shit. How Flak had ever seen anything worth saving in him was beyond him.

And here he was, sitting in that cosy little kitchen, a pregnant woman with her hand on his arm offering him comfort, but if she knew what kind of man he really was, she'd kill him without a second's hesitation.

The woman, in turn, noticed that he was fighting strong emotions and showed a surprising amount of tact in that she stood up and told him she would fetch some water from the well, probably to give him time to come to grips with himself again. Most likely, she ascribed his reaction to the things he had been through, and Shrapnel had no mind to correct her in that.

A little later he could hear voices, male ones and the woman, and realised that her men had come home from the fields. He also could hear Flak's voice joining them, but he couldn't hear what was being said. He just fought with his own feelings until, when the door opened and all four of them entered, he had himself and his face under control again.

_**x-x-x-x-x-x**_

"So, ye're saying that you two alone of a gang of mercs survived the attack, and ye managed to get him away from the slavers how... exactly?" Jake's voice held as much doubt as his facial expression showed, and Albert didn't seem convinced, either.  
"I just ran for it", Shrapnel gave back testily. "I thought going out like a light would be better than being a slave. I ran into him..." He jerked his thumb at Flak "...'cause he was just thinking of a way to get me out. I don't know how he did it, but he disarmed the fucking thing with the tip of a knife."  
"Don't actually know myself", Flak said slowly.

Both Jake and Albert looked back and forth between the two.

"Okay", Shrapnel snapped. "Whaddya think of that story? I'm a raider, and he's a slaver from Paradise Falls, you know, and we met there when my gang sold a few slave girls there. Next time we were there the slavers didn't feel hospitable and collared me, and because we've been fuckbuddies he arranged a distraction one night so we both could get away. That better?"  
Flak wasn't sure if he should guffaw or strangle Shrapnel to death, but after a few moments of heavy silence that followed these last words, Jake cleared his throat.  
"Well, then." He rolled his shoulders. "Albert, how about ye get yer tools and we see if we can help that poor fucker over there?"

Albert, a large broad-shouldered man of very little words, stood up with an affirmative grunt and left the hut. Shrapnel watched him go and didn't really dare to look at Flak.

When Albert returned a little later he bore a tool box filled with an assortment of spanners, wrenches, screwdrivers and files and a large and sinister looking bolt cropper. He put all those things onto the table, cracked his knuckles, and gave Shrapnel a meaningful look.  
"Sit on that chair here, dude", he said. "And we'll see about it."

Flak slowly lit a cigarette and forced himself to keep calm. With those tools he would have had the collar of Shrapnel's neck in no time at all, but he was forced to hold his tongue because admitting any knowledge about the collar would have given them both away. So he kept silent and watched as Albert examined the collar and tried his luck with several small screwdrivers and wrenches.

In the end, Albert went the path of brute force when all else had failed and applied the bolt cutter. The metal screeched and groaned and the collar cracked and bent and finally, after almost strangling Shrapnel, it gave with a metallic ring and clattered to the ground.  
Shrapnel gasped and coughed and gingerly clutched his raw and mangled throat, feeling a few trickles of blood where edges of the bursting metal had broken through the skin.  
The woman, who had earlier introduced herself as Rosie, now walked over to him and carefully cleaned the skin of his neck with a rag soaked in something alcoholic. It stung like liquid fire and Shrapnel couldn't suppress a hiss, but the bleeding stopped.

"There." Rosie patted his shoulder. "Isn't that better?"  
"Lots." Shrapnel coughed again. "Is there more water?"  
"Ye don't need no water, boy." Jake dug into a pocket and produced a canteen that he uncorked before he offered it to him.

Shrapnel took it with a nod of thanks and took a generous swig of whatever infernal stuff it was. It burned in his nostrils and the way down his throat before turning into a pleasant warmth in his stomach. "Thanks", he muttered after his eyes had stopped watering.

Jake took the canteen and knocked it back before offering it to Flak who declined.  
"So", Jake said, when Albert had finished clearing up his tools. "Now that we got that out of the way, what else would ye need? Might be we could help."  
"That's very generous", Flak said. "But I'm afraid we don't have anything to pay you. All that's left to us is what we have on our backs."  
"Payment doesn't have to be in caps", Jake gave back. "Rosie had you chopping wood for yer dinner, so ye get the picture. We've got a stable that needs a new roof. The more hands, the better. And if one of ye two had any knowledge to repair our old generator..."  
"I'll have a look at the generator", Flak said. "Tomorrow?"  
"Sure. It's dark now, pal. Rosie, find those two a few spare blankets. We don't have that much space, so I'm afraid you gotta sleep on the kitchen floor."  
"We've had worse", Shrapnel replied.

Rosie came back a few moments later with four blankets. "He might be Elliot's size, don't you think?"  
"Elliot?" Jake frowned. "That's right, but would you..."  
"I would." Then she looked at Flak and Shrapnel who looked mildly puzzled. "Elliot was my first husband. He died a few years ago, but I still have all his things. I just... I couldn't part with them. But you know... he was a practical man. He wouldn't have wanted them to go to waste." And then, to Flak, she added: "Would you get up?"  
Flak did so, and it turned out that the kitchen bench he had been sitting on was also a crate. Rosie dug into it and dumped several bundles onto the table, two softer ones and one that clanked. "His clothes and boots, and his shotgun."

Shrapnel opened the leather bundle that held the gun and couldn't suppress a whistle of admiration. It was a beautifully crafted pre-war gun, lovingly kept and cared for. "I can't accept that."

"Please." Rosie pressed her lips together for a second, then sighed. "It'll rust and be ruined if I continue to keep it here. He would've wanted someone who could appreciate it to make use of it. Please, take it. We can use an extra pair of hands here for a lot of things, so you wouldn't have to feel that you hadn't paid for it."  
"I'll... I'm honoured." And for the second time that day, Shrapnel felt like a rotten piece of shit. Someone had gifted him with a family heirloom, the most beautiful gun he had ever seen, and only because they didn't know the truth about him. He had to suppress the urge to blurt out the truth just so someone could know; it suddenly seemed too heavy a load to bear.  
Rosie mustered him, and he almost felt she knew the truth, that she could read it in his eyes somehow, and avoided her eyes. After a few moments, she patted his arm. "Take it. And now I think we'd best go to bed."

The door of the farmhouse wasn't locked. Just bolted from the inside. Nothing and no one could have stopped Flak and Shrapnel from leaving that night, taking the clothes and the guns and everything edible in the kitchen with them and forgetting about those poor, gullible farmers.

And when the sun rose, they rose as well and went with Jake and Albert to help putting a new roof onto the stable. Flak managed to repair the generator. Shrapnel cleared out the clogged pump at the well. And after another week, Shrapnel found himself suddenly employed as a runner, getting a message to the nearest neighbour's wife to ask for assistance during the birth of Rosie's child. The woman in question hurried back with him, and with sunrise, Jake and Rosie had a healthy baby daughter.

That was the point when Flak and Shrapnel thought it wise to leave. Jake and Albert both thanked them warmly for all their help, packed them a few provisions together and gave them what ammo they could spare. They made their farewells and left the farm again shortly before noon

_**x-x-x-x-x-x**_

"Do they live far away enough from Falls?"  
Flak lit up a smoke and shrugged. "Don't know, buddy. We've sometimes sent out scouts as far away as Rivet City."  
"Rivet City? Never heard of that place."  
"Never been there, either. It's supposed to be a big place. Close to a hundred people live there."

They stood on a small hill and looked back at the chain of hills behind which the farm nestled, hidden from view now after roughly three hours' walking. Elliot's clothes, a red, ribbed shirt and a pair of leather pants and a vest, both black, fit Shrapnel well enough which was fine, and his boots fit perfectly, which was a blessing.

Shrapnel patted his own pockets, but those were all empty. Flak offered him a smoke and with a muttered thanks, Shrapnel took it and leaned over the lighter. Puffing his cheeks, he then stared back at the farm again. "You know what I think?"  
"What?"  
"I think Rosie didn't swallow our story. I think she... I don't know. I think she looked right through me. I think she realised that the supposed bullshit I dished out actually was the truth."  
"You sure?" Flak tapped off his ash. "Then why didn't she have her two men kill us?"  
"Fuck if I know." Shrapnel took a drag and shrugged, shaking his head. "Fuck if I know, buddy. Maybe I'm just imagining things. Going cold must've fucking warped my mind to shit."

Flak didn't reply, and after a while, he shouldered his bag again and jerked his head. "Megaton's that way. Maybe we can find work as caravan guards or something."  
Shrapnel nodded and was about to follow him when he turned around again.

"What is it?"  
"Evergreen Mills lies that way", Shrapnel replied slowly. "There's a good chance I'll find that bitch Chippy there at one point."  
"Right. The minx what sold you."

Shrapnel slowly shouldered his shotgun and brought his smoke to his lips again. He wanted her dead, his rage still burned deeply inside him, but he would have to go there alone. Flak had risked his neck for him and lost everything, and he couldn't stomach asking him for help again.

"I'm heading west, buddy."  
"Alone?", Flak asked after a moment's silence.  
"You've risked and lost enough, buddy. The bitch's mine, it's my revenge. I'll kill her or die trying."

Flak replied with a non-committing grunt and for a while. Both men stood there and smoked in silence.

"Well then", Flak finally said. "If you'd rather go alone, then you'd best get going."  
Shrapnel turned around, but Flak's face was unreadable. "Thanks." He held out his hand, and Flak took it. "Thanks for saving my sorry arse, buddy."  
"Don't let it get caught again."  
"I've learned my lesson."  
"Right."

They stared at each other for a moment, then Flak shrugged, shrugged his pack into place and turned around. Shrapnel remained, resisted the urge to call him back because he really owed him enough already and watched as Flak's broad back vanish down the rise. Then he turned around as well and headed west, for Evergreen Mills, ignoring the feeling that he was taking the wrong way and ignoring the memories of a starlit night and a large, warm and calloused hand toying with his hair.


	6. Chapter 6

After two years of caravanning, Flak was sick of the Wasteland, and after the last tour through D.C. that had almost gotten the lot of them killed several times he was sick of being a caravan guard. But there was little else he could do, so his life wasn't likely to change anytime soon.

Entering the marketplace of Rivet City was a blessing; coming in from the oppressive heat outside the cool, shady hangar was as inviting and promising respite as an oasis to a traveller in the desert. Flak entered, with him the three other guards, and was almost shot dead. The bullet impacted two inches beside his head.

"The fuck?" He drew his gun, as did his companions, when they realised it had only been Quentin.  
Quentin, the weapon dealer in Rivet City who was getting on a bit in years, had – again – forgotten to unload one of the guns he was about to repair. "Sorry, guys!", he yelled merrily at the mercenaries on the stairs and returned his attention to the rifle he was tinkering with.

Flak shook his head with a sigh and lit up a smoke. The years hadn't been kind to Quentin, especially not to his mind, and it could occasionally be a little tedious to get the right type of ammo from him. Every time he came to Rivet City Flak secretly hoped the poor old man would've met his maker, but he clung as stubbornly to life as he clung to keeping his shop. Sooner or later, somebody would get hurt.  
As he passed the stall he cast a cautious look at the gun Quentin was struggling with and realised it was a very nice hunting rifle, a scoped one even, and that Quentin was banging it onto the table to get a bullet out. He cringed and walked around the counter.

"Wait a second." Smoke clamped firmly between his lips, he took the rifle out of the old man's hands and cautiously unloaded it, realising as he did so that the repeater mechanism needed some maintenance. "You wanna be gentle on the scope."  
"Bah." Quentin snorted. "Who needs those fuckers anyway? I used to be able to hit a fly's wing on hundred yards without one!"  
"Some sight to behold, I'm sure." Flak puffed his cheeks and let the smoke escape again as he spoke. "But there are those who ain't as fortunate, and those might find a scope a very handy thing."  
Quentin huffed and held out his hands. Somewhat reluctantly, Flak handed the rifle back and thought it a shame that most likely, it would be hardly more than scrap by the time Quentin was finished with it.

"Oy", a voice said, and Flak looked up to see two young men with SMGs head for the stall. "We need some ammo."  
Flak looked at Quentin, but the old man was engrossed in fiddling with the rifle and either hadn't noticed his customers or was busily ignoring them. With a shrug, Flak opened one of the drawers were Quentin kept the ammo, rummaged around until he found three packs of 10mm, and shoved those across the counter. Since he was a regular, he knew what Quentin usually charged and as he put the money into the till, Quentin suddenly pointed the rifle at him.  
"Hey", he said happily, squinting through the scope. "I can see the hairs in your nose."  
Had Flak not unloaded the gun himself, he probably would have hit the old man, despite his age. As it was, he gently pushed the muzzle of the gun out of his face and down. "Don't point guns at people you don't mean to shoot, Quentin. It's not polite."  
Quentin pouted at him, another sight to behold as Quentin lacked most of his teeth. Flak tried not to think of things with warts that lived in swamps.

"Say youngster", Quentin said after a moment without pausing to fiddle with the rifle. "You seem to know your way around guns. Mind giving old Quentin a hand? My eyes ain't what they used to be."  
It wasn't only his eyes, but Flak refrained from saying so. He had caught glimpses into the cabinet and different drawers on occasion, and the higgledy-piggledy chaos on every shelf and in every drawer had made him wince. It was no wonder the old man couldn't find his parts and his tools anymore.  
"Well..."

Someone tapped Flak's shoulder. He turned around to see Seagrave and the security chief there, both giving him imploring looks. Seagrave leaned closer and took hold of a corner of Flak's shirt.

"Say yes", he begged. "It's the first time ever he's asked someone for help."  
It occurred to Flak at that moment that the whole of Rivet City had been sharing his sentiments about Quentin and had been holding its breath, waiting for something to happen. It seemed like they finally saw their chance to replace Quentin with someone... well... safer.  
"It doesn't have to be forever", the chief whispered. "Just until we found... other arrangements."

'And get rid of the old crackpot' hung unspoken in the air, but Flak couldn't blame him. And the longer he thought about it, the more tempting the offer became. He had been complaining about caravaneering more than once the last few days. This was his chance.

"All right", he said slowly. "But are you sure..."  
"Absolutely", the chief gave back, with audible relief in his voice. Seagrave instantly went over to Quentin and began to talk the old man round into taking a coffee at Gary's. And within ten minutes after his arrival in Rivet City, Flak found himself co-proprietor of the armoury, still trying to keep up with events.

_**x-x-x-x-x-x**_

During the next weeks, Flak gradually took over business and found himself content with it. He cleaned out drawers and cabinets, sorted through the shelves, and at one point, Gary's young daughter came over with a bucket and a few rags to help him get the place clean again.  
In all that time, Quentin spent more and more time sitting happily on the sofa and contentedly slurping away at either beer or coffee, depending on the time of day, until one day, he didn't show up. That was no big surprise, as during the last months, he had failed to show up and open his shop on more than one occasion, but when someone went to check on him sometime in the afternoon, they found the old man still in bed, dead as a doornail.

In unspoken agreement, the status quo remained. Flak was content not having to go back into the wasteland, and the Riveteers were content to have someone managing the stall who could tell a 10mm from a .308 and who wouldn't shoot a customer by accident.

All in all, Flak's life had turned out quite well, and he might have been happy if not for the fact that he still kept thinking back to the day where he had parted with the man who might have become his best friend and whom he had just let go.

He often asked himself if he should have offered his help that day, even if he never forced himself on people, and more than once he wondered if his old friend was still alive somewhere. He often thought that he might have made a mistake in being so reserved.

But on some nights, those lonely nights when he was lying alone on his cot with his dick in his hand, he remembered that night in Paradise Falls, and that other night in the little cave where he had held on to him and willed him to live through hell… in those moments, he iknew/i he had made a mistake in letting Shrapnel go like that.


	7. Chapter 7

"Where's the catch?"  
"It's a suicide mission."

Shrapnel looked at Yan the merchant with narrowed eyes, but the man was absolutely sincere. "So you're offering me seven hundred caps to get you through a death zone of god knows what kind of mutated atrocities…"  
"It's only deathclaws, mostly. As far as I know."  
"Only deathclaws." Shrapnel dug into a pocket and produced a smoke. "As far as you know, huh?"  
"There's a reason I'm paying so well."  
Shrapnel lit the smoke and gave the merchant another look. "What's up there that's worth risking your neck for?"  
"It's not primarily what's up there, but who, lad." The merchant then pointed at the crates and kegs stacked beside him. "That alcohol is worth a fortune anywhere, but up there, the land's too fucked up to grow anything. Can hardly feed the few poor fuckers who live there. So there's people up north who would give an arm and a leg for one bottle of our booze."  
"And the catch is we have to go through a minefield of deathclaw nests."  
"Something like it, yeah."

Shrapnel took out his lighter and fiddled with it for a moment before he lit his smoke and slipped it back into his pocket. He needed cash, that was indisputable, but was the cash worth it? Working as a mercenary, he had been risking his hide constantly these last five years, and seven hundred caps… he could live off that much money for a year. Of course, if he kicked the bucket on the way, he wouldn't need no money any more, most likely not even a burial. He puffed his cheeks and exhaled a thoughtful cloud. And was his life really worth that much to him?

He kept on smoking in silence and the merchant, patiently waiting for an answer, began to go through his notes again.

Fact was he was sick of his life. Sick of everything and everyone. Had been ever since that day in Evergreen Mills when he had succeeded in finding and killing that bitch Chippy as she fucked the last guy who had been alive of their old gang. Had looked at her twitching corpse and realised that nothing had changed. Nothing would change.

She was dead, all right, but at that point he had realised that his life wouldn't get any better. He still had nightmares about having his balls cut off. He still had nightmares of being suffocated while being paralysed by pain. Her death hadn't changed it. And he had sacrificed the only friend he had ever had for a revenge that had been as cold and flat and dissatisfying like a week-old beer.  
He had all but fled Mills, had fled the whole fucking Capital Wasteland, heading west and south, selling his gun and risking his hide to feed himself even though he kept asking himself why he bothered.

In the end, he said yes to the job because he always did. He let himself being carried from hire to hire, never caring where he went.

No one bothered him, not for long, at least. He made a point of not wanting to indulge in useless small talk or come to friendly terms with anyone. He had a nasty temper and an even nastier mouth, and soon enough everyone around him knew and kept their distance, leaving him alone with his thoughts as unpleasant as they occasionally were.  
That worked this time too.

The journey was, as announced, a trip through seven different kinds of hell. On the three week trip, they lost five out of twelve mercenaries and one Brahmin to the monstrosities that inhabited the death zone, so when the eight men and their four remaining animals reached a river that Yan said was the Potomac, everyone breathed deeply in relief. They followed the river until they reached the Capital Wasteland, and not for the first time on this journey did Shrapnel think of his old buddy.  
The names of the places they had talked about, Megaton and Rivet City, had remained only names for him, but now at least he would see Rivet City with his own eyes. And he had to admit he was baffled when he realised that the city was a ship. A huge, fucking aircraft carrier. They stood for a while at the bottom of the ramp, and after Yan had given them a moment to be properly impressed, they left their Brahmins in the care of a few boys and walked up the ramp.

The marketplace, the former hangar of the ship, was huge; cool and shady as opposed to the humid heat outside.

"There's the galley at the other end, if you need food", Yan said. "Here's an advance, two hundred caps each. You get the rest after I sold the wares." He handed out some bags to his mercs and added: "Belowdecks is also a proper bar with a bigger choice of drinks, and if things haven't changed too much since last I was here, a few whores as well."

Shrapnel took his bag and watched with a mild feeling of disgust as the other's immediately began to head for the door to find said bar and heatedly began discussing the possibility of whores. No one asked him to come, and that was fine by him. He didn't want a whore, he wanted a beer to wash the grime out of his throat. He found the galley, ordered a beer, and after settling down at the table that was farthest away from any traffic, single-mindedly made love to his drink for a while.  
People came and went and he noticed that the stalls were being closed down and people were leaving the marketplace. He would have to relocate to that bar after all if he wanted another drink.

It was at that moment that Shrapnel, by sheer chance looking up when someone walked across the upper balcony, saw someone he thought he recognised. The door closed behind the man a second later and Shrapnel dropped his feet from the table, wondering with a racing heart if he had been mistaken.

He tried to calm himself. He probably had, but he had the nagging urge to try and find out if he really had. Confusing a man with someone he knew wouldn't get him in trouble, but the thought of missing out on even the slightest chance of finding his old friend again… or at least the man he liked to think of as friend, as someone who might have become a friend, made his stomach turn. He emptied the bottle, set it down and after running his hands through his hair to calm himself, hurried up the stairs and through the door he had seen the man vanish through.

By the time Shrapnel had closed the door behind him, he was out of sight and before him lay a maze of darkened corridors that all looked alike. He headed straight on, not taking a turn left or right, until he had to turn left or right. He looked back and forth and with a shrug, turned left and followed that corridor until he had to double back because it was a dead end. Next left, down the corridor, another door.

He had found the stairwell. Up or down? Above him he heard the sound of another door closing and with a shrug, made his way upstairs, taking two steps with each stride. He took the next door he reached and found himself outside again, on what seemed to be the flight deck. Wrecks of old planes were still rusting away here and there and between two of the old carcasses made of metal and rust was…

"Flak?"  
He hadn't heard, but maybe it wasn't Flak and he just didn't react to the name.  
His hear hammering in his chest, Shrapnel broke into a run. The likelihood was almost too strong to be chance. "Flak!"  
The man froze and turned around.  
And the cigarette fell out of the corner of his mouth.  
"The fuck…?" Then his eyes widened. "Shrap…?"  
"Flak!" Shrapnel slowed down as he reached him, slightly out of breath and grinning like a madman. "Man it's good to see you, buddy…"  
Flak hadn't moved an inch and was still staring at him. Shrapnel suddenly felt his spirits vanish.  
"The fuck are you doing here?"  
"I… I came with a caravan." Shrapnel rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. "I thought I'd recognized you and… well…"  
"Jesus", Flak said, his voice suddenly hoarse. "I thought I'd never see you again."  
"I… I thought the same." Shrapnel hooked his thumbs into his belt. "But I…" He didn't get any farther, as in that moment, Flak finally unfroze himself and took a step towards him before throwing his arms around Shrapnel in a rib-cracking bear hug.

Taken slightly by surprise Shrapnel needed a second to retaliate, but he returned the embrace with as much fierceness as he could muster. The two of them remained like that for a while, occasionally slapping each other's back, before they stepped back and broke the embrace. Flak was giving him a lopsided, little smile.

"Man, buddy", he said. "Come on. That calls for a drink."  
"I'm right behind you."

_**x-x-x-x-x-x **_

"So, what have you been doing with yerself, buddy?", Flak asked as he sat down again with a bottle of vodka and two glasses.  
"Merc", Shrapnel gave back as he lit a smoke before offering Flak the pack. The latter took one, popped it between his lips and leaned over Shrapnel's lighter before he leaned back again with puffed cheeks.  
"Caravans?"  
"That too." Shrapnel clamped the smoke between his lips and filled their glasses. "Was a caravan that got me here."  
"Fancy that." Flak took one of the glasses. "After five years, a caravan takes you straight to Rivet City, of all places."  
Shrapnel lifted his glass and they toasted before they knocked their drinks back with practised moves. "Yeah", he said after setting down the glass. "And what got you here?"  
"Caravan, too", Flak replied with a small chuckle. "Only…"  
"Only what?"  
"Long story", Flak gave back and took a drag of his smoke. "Their weapons dealer was a bit of a nutcase. Old age and all that. I gave him a hand, and he asked me could I do that again 'cause his eyesight wasn't what it used to be…" He paused and filled the glasses again. "And suddenly I was in charge of the weapons store because the old loony had to go and die on me all of a sudden. Well. Didn't fancy getting back into the fucking wasteland, so I stayed."

"You don't sound too upset." Shrapnel took his glass again.  
"Fuck no." Flak shook his head. "Was sick of the wasteland and caravaneering. That suited me fine, and still does."  
"Yeah, seems like", Shrapnel said while staring into his glass.  
Flak had caught the strange undertone of his last words and leaned a little forward. "Say buddy", he began cautiously. "I thought to me all the time you'd gone back to being a raider. After killing that bitch, I mean. You did kill her, didn't you?"  
"I killed her, all right", Shrapnel replied. "But the raiders… I don't know. I just don't know. I mean I was one of them, there's no use in the pot calling the fucking kettle black, but they…" he took a drag of his smoke and watched the cloud dissolve above his head. "I don't think I quite understand it. They just freaked me out."

Flak didn't reply and filled the glasses up again instead.

"I mean obviously you couldn't go back to be a slaver, but I... I could have, but I just wanted to get the fuck away from these assholes as far and fast as fucking possible."  
"And now?"  
"Now?" Shrapnel knocked his drink back and shrugged. "I guess I'm gonna be a merc until someone or something is finally faster or stronger than me."

Flak nodded and filled the glasses again, and they drank the rest of the bottle in companionable silence.

"Say", Flak said then, a while after the bottle had been finished. "Do you know where you'll sleep tonight?"  
"Not yet", Shrapnel replied, looking up from his empty glass. "I had just arrived and was having my first beer when I spotted you. My pack's still with the Brahmins, too, I guess."  
"Well, there's the commons, I can show you where it is. Beds are free, that is, free of charge. If there's a free bed is sometimes a matter of luck. But it's most likely stuffed with shit-faced mercs who fart and belch and snore loud enough to make your eyes water."  
"I know such places too", Shrapnel replied amusedly.  
"Then there's the hotel", Flak went on. "But that Vera is a snobbish minx and a night there'll cost you an arm and a leg. Don't know if a little privacy is worth that much money to you."  
Shrapnel shrugged. "I guess I'll go for the commons. It's not as if I ain't used to snoring, farting mercs."  
"You know…" Flak looked at him, his eyelids lowered. "I've got a cabin, and it's got a spare cot. I mean, I snore too, and I'll probably fart as well, but at least I'm only one."  
Their eyes met and Shrapnel felt his heartbeat speed up, but forced the feeling down again. "Wouldn't mind that. Thanks for the offer, buddy."  
"I'll show you out", Flak replied and got up. "This place is a fucking maze and takes a bit getting used to."


	8. Chapter 8

"Not bad", Shrapnel said as he dropped his bag beside the cot Flak had pointed at. "A window would be nice, but as it is..."  
"Yeah, you get used to the steel maze after a while. You can always go up on deck if you need some air and real light for a change."

Shrapnel nodded absentmindedly and crossed his arms as he shoved his pack under the cot with the tip of his boot.

"Something wrong, buddy?"  
"Wrong?", Shrapnel asked a little shakily. "No. I'm just… I'm still trying to catch up with the fact that I found you here. I thought I'd never see you again."  
"Yeah… I kind of regretted it ever since that I didn't offer to come along to kill that bitch, but I had the impression you wanted to go alone."  
Shrapnel slowly turned around, but Flak's expression was hard to read. "I did want to go alone", he gave back slowly. "Because I felt that I owed you enough already and didn't want you to risk your hide again for me."

The two men exchanged a long, silent glance.

"That's some bullshit, you know that, buddy?", Flak finally said. "We're idiots, the both of us."  
Shrapnel felt a small grin spread on his face. "Probably. And now?"  
Flak narrowed his eyes a little and took a step forward. "I could think of a few things."

The temperature in the small cabin suddenly seemed to have risen.

"Could you?"  
Flak took another step forward and now they were so close that their bodies almost touched. "You know, buddy", he began in a low voice. "I know that sounds soppy but…" He cleared his throat. "I kinda missed you."  
"I…" Shrapnel found the look Flak was giving him hard to bear but unable to avoid. "I missed you too, buddy. Wasn't a single day these last five years where I didn't think of you."  
"Is that so." Flak brought his hands up to rest them on Shrapnel's shoulders. "Of me, or of my big, fat and juicy dick?"  
Shrapnel chuckled breathlessly. "Both."

One corner of Flak's mouth was tugged up into a lopsided smile, but instead of a reply, he moved one of his hands to the back of Shrapnel's head. Mesmerized by the glowing look in Flak's steel-grey eyes Shrapnel followed the pressure of that hand until he could feel the other man's breath on his lips. He closed his eyes, and his world vanished into a haze as he experienced his very first kiss. Warm, chafed lips tasting of vodka and smoke. Cautious, tentative, yet knowing, touching his own again and again. The pressure of something warm and moist, and on instinct, Shrapnel opened his own lips. A moan caught in his throat and he grabbed Flak's upper arms with both his hands as he let that tongue explore him. Then it was gone, but came back after a second, teasing him to follow. He did, and now explored himself while their arms closed around each other, pressing their bodies tightly together. Both men were breathing heavily against each other's lips, each breath a hardly suppressed moan. Both men felt the burn of a hunger, denied for far too long.

When they broke free from each other both men were breathing hard and fast and didn't waste any time in assaulting each other's wardrobe. Tearing impatiently at buttons, fumbling clumsily with buckles and buttons, hastily discarding shirts. Then another of those glorious kisses, bare chest against bare chest, their hands now roaming each other's backs.

Flak leaned back first, his dark look full of hunger, the same hunger that Shrapnel felt, too. He stood back, only to tear the mattress from his cot and throw it onto the ground before them. And without taking his eyes off Flak's, Shrapnel now let his pants drop and stepped free of them. Then, slowly, almost languorously, he settled down on the mattress.  
Flak watched his every move, and slowly, followed suit, resting down beside him and Shrapnel ran a hand down his flank. "I missed you." His voice was no more than a husky whisper.  
As an answer Flak just pulled him close again, into another kiss, hungry, open-mouthed and greedy. Their arms locked around each other, their legs entwined, bare skin on bare skin without anything left between them.

Shrapnel broke the kiss with what was almost a sob. He didn't supress a moan this time when Flak dug his teeth into his shoulder, just ran a hand down the other man's flank, and down across his hips, to rest it on his crotch and the hot, eager and rock-hard dick.

Flak let go with a small gasp and fell onto his back, eyes closed. "Oh god, buddy…" His voice sounded strange and urgent "Please…"  
Shrapnel leaned over him now, his hair falling tousled into his face, and kissed him again: He was getting the knack of it very quickly. Then he moved his lips down the throat and down between Flak's strong, square pectorals, and across to give one of his nipples a tender bite before shifting his attention to the other nipple. He closed his lips around it and sucked, rubbing it with his tongue, until Flak shuddered and emitted a strangled little groan.  
Shrapnel trailed his lips further down, past the navel and into the nest of wiry hairs, then he paused, moistening his lips for that last, most intimate of kisses.

Flak buried his hands in Shrapnel's hair with an unchecked moan. "Shrap…"  
Shrapnel closed one hand around the tender balls and dropped his head, it was impossible to get all of that dick into his mouth, but it wasn't even necessary. He closed his other hand around it and applied a pumping motion while he sucked and licked Flak's bell-end until the other man was pushed over the edge and spent himself into his mouth with a hoarse, drawn out moan.

He swallowed, but he didn't swallow the whole load because he had a plan, and when Shrapnel leaned back to look at Flak, utterly spent and a gasping, shuddering mess, he smiled to himself and felt anticipation itch in his own crotch. He took a firm grip of Flak's hips to turn him onto his belly and was met with little resistance there.

He had an arse you could forge a weapon on. Round, firm and perfect in every aspect, but Shrapnel couldn't tell his buddy so because he still had his mouth full of spunk.

He leaned forward to press a few light kisses on Flak's buttocks, then he dug his hands into them and pried them a little apart, running his tongue along the crack and the small, puckered entrance he found there. Under him, Flak shuddered and moaned when he felt Shrapnel's tongue caress that hidden spot.  
Having successfully executed his plan Shrapnel leaned back again and moved between Flak's legs, his dick aching and twitching when he leaned over the now well lubricated goal of his.

Both men moaned heavily when Shrapnel entered him, and as he moved, he trailed his hands up and down Flak's broad and muscled back, again and again, letting himself be carried away by the sensation of being enveloped in the tight hotness of Flak's perfect arse.

He started slow and easy, revelling in the sensations that movement gave him, but his own hunger was goading him on and he increased his speed and his ferocity until he was slamming into the other man like a piston. It was over far too quickly, and he spent himself with a bellow that vibrated in his chest.  
Then he slowly let himself sink down until he rested on Flak's back, with his head between his shoulder blades.

When he had caught his breath back, and when his heart had calmed down again, he began to idly trace the curves of Flak's muscles with a single finger. "You were right, you know."  
"Hm?"  
"We are idiots. We could've been doing this for years if we hadn't… you know. Just because we didn't speak our minds."  
"Well." Flak shifted his weight. "Mind getting off me? It's easier to talk if I don't have to twist my neck."  
Shrapnel cautiously withdrew himself and slid down from Flak's back, coming to rest on his side to look at him. Flak stretched himself with a grunt and several cracking joints and turned on his side as well.

"Let's look at it this way", he said. "At least we did run into each other again."  
"Fuck, yes", Shrapnel gave back. "And now?"  
"Now?" Flak gave him that lopsided, little smile again. "Now I'm gonna speak my mind. Would hate to see you go again."  
"Would you?" Shrapnel couldn't supress a slight feeling of embarrassment. "And what…"  
"You know", Flak fell in. "I can think of something… I mean, you do know the difference between a lever action and a pump action."  
"Well… yes."  
"And you know a shell from a bullet."  
"Fuck yeah, but…"  
"See, I could sure use a hand around the shop, you know. Ever since news has gotten around in the Capital Wasteland that there's a reliable weapons dealer in Rivet City again, I've got my hands full all day."  
"Co-workers?"  
"Co-owners." Flak flashed him a crooked grin. "Whaddya think of 'Flak and Shrapnel's'?"

"You…" Shrapnel suddenly felt a lump in his throat. "Are you serious?"  
"You don't honestly mean to go back waltzing through the wasteland guarding a merchant's ass, do you?"  
"No but…"  
"Then it's a deal?"  
"Flak…"  
"That's my name. So. Flak and Shrapnel's?"  
Their eyes met, and Shrapnel took a deep breath and nodded. "Sounds good to me, buddy."  
"Fine." Flak held out his hand and Shrapnel took it, both men closing their hands around each other's thumb. "Deal. And now…"  
"Now?"  
Flak's smile suddenly turned into something decidedly devious. "Now", he said again, digging his fingers into Shrapnel's hair and pulling his face closer, "Now I've got a favour to return."


End file.
